Search Engines

A Guide to Searching the Web

Web sites exist on practically every subject imaginable, and the number of Web sites is growing exponentially. This rapid growth means that the key to finding the information you need is using one (or more) of the powerful Web search engines.

One piece of warning, though: each search engine has different search principles and different methods of searching. Think carefully about your search terms and know how the search engine deals with 'ands' and 'ors.' It also helps to list the major concepts of your topics and think of synonyms for these concepts. Once your search is completed, simply double-click on a Web site that interests you and you are automatically connected to that site.

The following are the major Web search engines – along with their Web addresses.

• Search All in One, NEW! - "Grouping" feature. Now you can quickly zero in on the results you want! Web address: http://all4one.searchallinone.com/

  Search AllinOne MetaSearch!

• Alta Vista, which claims to be capable of indexing and searching 21 million Web pages and Usenet news groups up to 100 times faster than existing search engines. Web address: http://www.altavista.com/
• Excite, which searches more than 50 million Web sites and two weeks of Usenet News. Web address: http://www.excite.com
• HotBot, a venture between HotWired and Inktomi, wants to be known as the search engine that has the capacity to index and search the entire Web. Ranked number one of all search engines in the number of sites it has in its index. A great tool. Web address: http://www.hotbot.com/
• Go Guide, formerly InfoSeek, which is the only search engine that fully integrates Internet directory browsing and Internet searching. Web address: http://www.go.com/
• Google, simply the best search engine on the Web, indexing the largest number of Web pages -- and now offering the ability to search images, and more. Web address: http://www.google.com/
• Lycos, which is a comprehensive Internet database that allows Boolean 'and' and 'or' combinations of words in searching more than 19 million Web sites. Web address: http://www.lycos.com/
• WebCrawler, which operates by navigating the Web and either building an index for later use or by searching in real-time. Web address: http://webcrawler.com/
• Yahoo, which is a fairly comprehensive subject index, but its search engine is weak. Web address: http://www.yahoo.com/search.html
• Northern Light Search, which is unique in that it searches both full-text articles of more than 2,000 publications as well as a large number of Web pages. Sort results into folders based on keywords, source, or other criteria. Web address: http://www.nlsearch.com
• What's New, the complete listings of new Web sites on the Internet. A great site for finding the latest additions to the Web. Web address: http://www.whatsnu.com/index.html
• Web Search -- check this site out! Web address: http://www.web-search.com/

You also might want to check out the Quintessential Careers: Search Engines and Directories page, which has a more complete listing of search engines. Try also this site for advice: